As quickly as she came, she disappeared.

Diana, Big Guy’s pink-haired sister/wife protectress, is gone. She’s left to play with the boy next door. “I don’t need to play with her anymore, Mommy,” Big Guy told me when I asked where she was.

At least she didn’t get exiled to the Acre Wood with the Doo-Dahs. Life can be tough in the forest for a chick who always wears pink stiletto boots.

But that’s as it should be, with both Diana and the Doo-Dahs. Less than two weeks after we met her, she took off.

That’s the pattern with imaginary friends, the experts say. They serve their purpose, then move on.

Children work through their problems and conquer their fears through make-believe, psychologist and author Sal Severe says.

In Big Guy’s case, nightmares were the issue.

To my discredit, I thought at first he was making them up. Little Guy long has had scattered bouts of night terrors. He had one not long after the two became roommates, and it woke up Big Guy and a ton of questions.

So I figured nightmares were just the trendy thing. Until Big Guy woke me up one night, not long after he’d been allowed to watch an animated movie way too scary for his age, crying in his sleep. He didn’t remember it the next morning, but, nonetheless, he put Diana to work on the problem.

When she wasn’t at college or cooking dinner, she was in their bedroom “breaking the shadows.” Then, Friday, Diana went to school with Big Guy. That’s when I knew we were near the end.

Two days later, I had a bizarre-o dream of my own, involving the Seventh Street Bridge. The lions on either end had left their perches and were running down the street in front of us. It probably means either I’m spending too much time in my car or I’ve seen “Lion King” one too many times.

I made sure I shared it with Big Guy – I had to make up for my earlier screw-up in doubting the nightmares were real.

“Hey, guess what, dude! I had a really strange dream last night. Want to hear about it?”

He was spellbound. I made sure I laughed uproariously as I told it, as if to say, “Nothing to be afraid of. Weird happens to all of us.”

The next day, Diana was gone.

I miss her a bit, much in the same way “Puff the Magic Dragon” has choked me up since the guys came along.

Good to know she’s just next door, though. Maybe she can visit some nights when I don’t feel like making dinner.

Copyright 2007 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.

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